Updated: Cyclist shot at on Mt Lemmon; shooter detained

Updated: According to a press release from the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, the man who allegedly fired his weapon on Mt. Lemmon was located, in part, because of a call deputies received from his family suggesting he was suicidal and parked in the Bear Wallow campground.

The release confirms that the man detained was taken to a medical facility after being detained.

A man has been detained after allegedly shooting toward at least one cyclist and threatening several others on Mt. Lemmon this morning.

Tucson cyclist Scott Audilet said he was riding toward the radio towers on Ski Run Road between 10 -11 a.m. when he encountered a man sitting on the hood of his car who told him to “turn around right now.”

Audilet said he continued toward the top when he heard the man fire three shots.

He rode away as quickly as he could and found workers who were able to contact the Sheriff’s Department.

Audilet eventually turned around and the man was gone. Audilet spotted him him later sitting in his car at Bear Wallow Road.

It was at that point Pima County Sheriff’s deputies made contact with alleged shooter.

Pima County Sheriff’s Department public information officer Jesus Bañuelos said the investigation was ongoing and could not release much information.

He did say the person responsible for the shooting was detained and that the threats were not specifically targeted toward cyclists.

Audilet said he was told the man was being transported to a hospital for mental health evaluations.

Bañuelos said he could not confirm where deputies were taking the suspect.

This is one of the things I keep telling people about that they don't believe: <i>Cars are more dangerous than guns.</i> The guy shot at the cyclist 3 times and didn't hit him. That's in line with the Army/FBI statistic that only 1 out of 20 bullets fired to kill someone actually hits someone. Now tack that together with the CDC report that only 1 out of 11 bullet wounds are fatal and you get a 0.45% fatality rate per bullet fired to kill someone, or one fatality in every 220 bullets fired. Cars on the other hand hit someone nearly every time it is intended to hit someone and a great number of the times they are intended to "teach a lesson" and scare someone but not actually hit them, because when someone is using a motor vehicle as a weapon they are frequently not smart enough to actually know where the edges of the vehicle are and hit them with varying degrees of severity. Add in the true accidents and the terminal fatality of a motor vehicle (against pedestrians and cyclists starting at 30 MPH motor vehicles are 50% fatal, 85% fatal at 40, 95% fatal at 50 and as close to 100% as makes no difference except to the survivors at 60 MPH and above) and you get more people killed with motor vehicles than are killed with guns every year.

I don't know a lot of people who "try" to use cars to kill people, but I imagine it isn't as common as using a gun. But seriously, why don't we stop trying to compare the relative lethality of two methods of attempting to kill people and just try to stop both of them.

@Cameron I'm in full agreement with having fewer deaths from either motor vehicles or firearms. As far as how often people use motor vehicles as weapons, that is unknown unless there was either a statement before or after or the driver did something that made it clear even without stating explicitly as in one of the times I was hit where the driver was screaming obscenities at me and made a u-turn to get on my side of the street before running into me.

It has been stated many times that if you want to kill someone at random the ideal weapon is a motor vehicle and the ideal victim is a pedestrian or cyclist. Just claim blindness ("I didn't see him") and frequently you get a pat on the back to "comfort" you in your "stress" of "accidentally" killing someone.